The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1887-02-26
The FORCE OE HABIT.
The Enormous FIy-Wheel and Most Pre-
ciOus Conservative Agent of Society.

The Enormous FIy-WheeI and Most Pre-
ciOus Conservative Agent of Society.
"Habit second nature! Habit is
ten times nature" the Duke of Yelling
ton is said to have exclaimed; and the
! degree to which this is true no one can
probably appreciate as well us one who
is a veteran soldier himself. The daily
drill and the years of discipline end by
fashioning man completely over
again, as to most of the possibilities of
his conduct. "There is a story, which
is credible enough, though it may not
be true, of practical joker, who, seeing
discharged veteran carrying home
his dinner, suddenly called out: 'Atten-
tion!' whereupon the man instantly
brought his hands down, and lost his
mutton and potatoes in the gutter. The
drill had been thorough, and its effects
had been embodied in the man nervous
structure"
Riderless cavalry-horses, at many a
battle, have been seen to come together
/ and 90 through their customary evolu-
tons at the sound of the bugle-call
Most trained domestic animals, dogs
and oxen, and omnibus and carhorses,
seem to be machines almost pure and
simple, undoubtingly, unhesitatingly
doing from minute to minute the duties
they have been taught, and giving no
sign that the possibility of an alterna
tive ever suggests itself to their mind
Men grown old in prison have asked to
be readmitted after being once set free.
In a railroad accident to a travelling
menagerie in the United States some
time in 1884, a tiger, whose cage had
broken open, is said to have emerged,
but presently crept back again, as if too
much bewildered by his new response
bilities, 50 that he was without difficulty
secured.
Habit is thus the enormous fiy-wheel
of society, its most precious conserva-
tive agent. 1t alone is what keeps us
all within the bounds of ordinance, and
saves the children of fortune from the
envious uprisings of the poor 1t alone
prevents the hardest and most rcpul-
sive walks of life from being deserted
by those brought up to tread therein.
ltkeeps the fisherman and the deck-hand
at sea through the winter; it holds the
miner in his darkness, and nails the
| countryman to his log-cabin and his
lonely farm through all the months of
snow; it protects us from invasion by
tha N oti,-nS of tbn dos nd a.,
zone. 1t dooms us all to fight out the
battle of life upon the lines of our nur-
ture or our early choice, and to make
the best of a pursuit that disagrees, be-
cause there is no other for which we
are fitted, and it is too late to begin
again. 1t keeps different social strata
from mixing. Already at the age of
twenty-five you see the professional
mannerism settling down on the young
commercial traveller, on the young
doctor, on the young minister, on the
young counselor-at-law. You see the
little lines of cleavage running through
the character, the tricks of thought, the
prejudices. the ways of the ''shop'' in
word, from which the man can by and
by no more escape than his coat-sleeve
can suddenly fall into new set of folds.
On the whole, it is best he should not
escape. 1t is well for the world that in
most of us, by the age of thirty the
character has set like plaster, and will
never soften again.-Prof. William
James, IN P0pMLnr Science MonthLu,